


A Cup Shared

by Allekha



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship, Reconciliation, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-17 07:53:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17556341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allekha/pseuds/Allekha
Summary: Shaun visits his mother before the war to try to connect with her better after it.





	A Cup Shared

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts).



The street was so bright. So, so bright, and so colorful, that Shaun's eyes watered for a few minutes as he tried to get his bearings. The Institute was bright, but not like the pre-War sun, and its grass and trees had nothing on what grew beside every house. The people walking down the street barely glanced at the greenery, belying how utterly unremarkable it was to them.

There was one house in particular that he was looking for, and it didn't take long to find it in the small collection of homes. A Mr. Handy – his mother had given it some silly name – hummed a tune as it prodded at a collection of sunny flowers, ignoring him as he strode up and knocked on the door.

"Hello," he said when it opened, smiling. His cover story came out easily. "I'm a representative from Vault-Tec. I'm here to let you know that your family has been selected for a spot in Vault 111. And if you have time, I would also like to ask a few questions to make sure that everything is in place for your and your family in the event of a nuclear attack."

His mother blinked at him for a moment. She looked so different like this: no scars on her face, her hair neatly done. Her clothes were casual, colorful, clean, ironed crisp. After an awkward few seconds, she smiled back at him.

Nora did not do a lot of smiling on the occasions that they met. She had a nice smile, Shaun supposed. He'd tried to find a resemblance between hers and his own, but he wasn't used to the sight of his own smile, and he had so little data to go on.

"Of course," she said, stepping to the side. "Would you like to come in?"

The inside of the room was warm-colored, not like the blue tones that Institute lighting had. It was decorated, too. Of course, so were rooms back in his home, when the residents wished to decorates; in individual quarters, one could find carpets on the floors and crafts mounted on the walls. But Nora had so much space here – half the room was taken up by a huge kitchen just for her family, with curtains on the big windows, and the living quarters weren't even visible from where he stood. Shaun had lived in a room half this size until he'd earned the Director's quarters for himself.

They sat at the kitchen table, where there was a vase with a couple of flowers. She offered coffee; he touched the flowers while she fetched it, and was surprised at the texture of the petals. They weren't cloth.

The Institute had coffee, but it was nothing like what she gave him. Bitter, but not too bitter, mellowed when he poured in the milk she set out. He could see why someone might enjoy sipping at it with company, rather than pouring it down as fast as possible so they could get back to work with a caffeine boost.

Shaun always had a pad of paper in his pocket for taking notes when ideas struck, and he pulled it out now. He didn't need to take notes, but he was meant to be a Vault-Tec employee for the moment, not the Director of the Institute having a sit-down with his mother. (Nora didn't really have sit-downs with him, either. She preferred to stand.)

"So," she said, "how did we get selected, again?"

"Your husband's service," he said, relying on some information a synth had deemed interesting enough to bring back from the surface. What was the kind of thing they would have said back then? "It's in exchange for his help in fighting for our country's freedom."

"I see," she said. "We were thinking about doing an application, but we hadn't gotten around to it yet. I didn't realize you could be selected."

He gave her some more smooth words about her husband – his biological father – and how Vault-Tec valued them (a total lie), then said, "Tell me a bit about your family."

This was why he was here: to find out more about the mother he'd never known. He'd had parents, and he'd cared for them, but they had always made it clear where he had come from. The only problem was that nobody knew much about who his biological parents truly were. His father was in the army and had been shot dead. His mother had still been frozen in the Vault, far away from him or anyone. Shaun had their DNA profiles, and he could recite a few facts about them, but facts didn't make a complete person, not any more than a synth was a person because it looked like one and talked like one.

He'd been curious to meet her, to see the woman who had held him as an infant, to see what she was like. What about him was nature, and what was nurture? But in their conversations so far, she'd said little to him that mattered. He could track her adventures in the wastelands above, but they were so confusing. Why was she teaming up with ancient synths and ghouls? Why was she venturing into the Glowing Sea and fighting super-mutants?

Why wouldn't she stay with him, in the Institute? Why wouldn't she commit to their mission? Didn't she want to help bring back the same world that she'd left behind? This lovely, shining version of Earth, where grass waved in the breeze, where coffee tasted good, where she never had to think about how much electricity a light bulb used or worry about where clean water would come from?

He wanted to understand, and time was running out for him.

"You probably know most of it already," she said, cupping her hands around her mug and lacing her fingers together. Shaun copied her. "Well, there's me, my husband, Nate – just got back to the home front – and the baby. And Codsworth." She smiled and looked over as the Mr. Handy came through the front door and bustled down the hallway. "Can we bring him with us?"

"I'm sorry?"

"To the Vault, if we need to go."

"I'll make a note of it." Why was his mother so easily attached to machines? She was always so concerned for the synths, too. Last time she had visited, she'd brought presents for the synth child meant to emulate him. She spent more time asking strange questions about synths than on telling him about her own past.

"We weren't really sure if our application would be accepted if we applied," she said, "but I guess we didn't have to worry about that after all."

"Why not?"

She gestured toward her face. "Third generation, but most people just see this." She was a pretty woman, with a low nose he'd inherited, and narrow, upturned eyes lined in black. "What with all the anti-Chinese sentiment lately...."

Right. He'd read about it as a child. War passions turned onto citizens on home soil. "I understand," he said.

"I didn't want to assume," she said. "I'm worried about what it will be like by the time our baby is in school. He's only half, but still. I hope the war's over by then and everything's back to normal."

If only she knew.

Anyway, that was one place where the Institute had improved upon the past. Scientists were evaluated based on their ideas and their achievements. That was how Shaun had made it to Director: by proving himself worthy of the post. Anybody could marry who they wished, although efforts went into making sure the population stayed diverse enough to sustain itself, and genetic screening was required to make sure that children didn't inherit disease, in order to make sure their small community was as healthy as possible. None of these silly pre-War notions. Surely his mother had to appreciate that.

"Your husband is a soldier... and yourself?"

"Lawyer. Took time off to have the baby, but I'm hoping to be back to work when he's older." She nodded towards the degree on the wall, beaming.

The Institute was small enough to not need lawyers. The wasteland above them was too lawless to have use for them. But in the future, someone with that experience could be a useful leader, if only she was willing to help them. Maybe he could try talking to her about that, see if she would open up about her old career. She probably missed it.

His next question was interrupted by the Mr. Handy rushing back into the room. "I'm very sorry for the interruption, Mum, sir, but Shaun is being very fussy and won't calm down."

Nora was on her feet in a moment, hurrying down the hall. Shaun followed her.

The baby had his own room, with toys and board books scattered around. Nora lifted the baby Shaun into her arms, shushing him. "What's with you, honey? Oh, see, there you go. Did you just need to be held?" She looked up, saw Shaun, and her lips quirked up. "He's still pretty young. Sorry about that."

"It's no problem. Of course your son takes priority." He couldn't help but peer at the baby him, trying to figure out how those features had become his own. The chubby cheeks slimming down, the big eyes becoming less prominent as his face grew.

Nora held him close, humming, smiling softly for him, all her attention focused. Love. She had looked at him like that, for a few moments, the first time they'd met. Right after the shock had worn off. Not since then.

Shaun let the Mr. Handy lead him back to the living area. So much space in this house for one couple and a child. A Mr. Handy to serve just the three of them. Warm, fresh air coming through the cracked window, friendly neighbors walking down the street outside.

The Mr. Handy brought him a slice of pie, and it was by far the most delicious thing Shaun had ever eaten. It didn't hold a candle to the dehydrated sweets from the surface he'd snuck a few times as a child, the ones the synths liked so much. If only he could take this back to the Institute to eat, instead of the food paste. Probably for the best, since it wasn't nutritionally balanced, but he found himself scraping the plate.

There was a comic on the counter. A few pictures had been left scattered and messy near the television. The Mr. Handy left that much of the mess be as it bustled around, though no synth would have done so.

Shaun took notes. These were the things he needed to make her think of. He could start with some general questions, show curiosity about her life in the past, get the memories close to the surface. Maybe he could get her to smile a bit.

Nora came out again, still holding the baby, but before he had the opportunity to ask her much more, his watch beeped. Time was nearly up. "I'm afraid I need to get going," he said. "But thank you for your time today."

"Thanks for stopping by," she said. She showed him out and put on another smile as he left. "Say good-bye, Shaun," she told the baby, picking up one of his arms to make him wave.

"Good-bye," he said, before retreating down the path.

He only had a minute left. He breathed in the air, not recycled and not polluted with dust and radiation, looking at the forest beyond the houses – not isolated trees, but hundreds of them. This was the world as it had been. The world as it could be. The world as the Institute would make it again, except even brighter and more advanced.

Shaun would not be there to guide it for much longer. But his mother could be. Would be, hopefully, if he could just make her see his vision.

Maybe he would start with the coffee, like she had.

~!~

He tried the coffee next time she came to visit. He sat across from her and offered a cup, quietly lamenting that his experimental visit to the past couldn't have changed anything – that he couldn't have prevented the nuclear exchange, if he'd wanted to, or planted the seed of the idea of the Institute in her head. But perhaps it had still been useful after all.

His mother in this time wasn't like she had been; she was visibly tired, and her eyes crinkled a little more at the corners and were no longer lined in black. She wore clothes that were washed but worn, grime pressed into the fibers, but at least her ridiculously large backpack was tucked out of sight.

She took one sip of the coffee and made a face. She didn't touch it again as he tried to talk to her – about the coffee, about her schooling, about the clean air and water of the past. To his frustration, her expression didn't change, either, and she simply stared at him as he tried to make conversation.

"I know what you're doing," she eventually said, cutting him off. "You're not very subtle, Shaun."

"I don't know what—"

"It's exactly the same thing your father or I would do, in your shoes," she said. "I've been thinking of how to try the same strategy on you. He was very analytical, too, you know – had a degree in computer science. Didn't want to get Codsworth at first because he wanted a robot that he could reprogram more easily, for fun. He was wasted in the military. Anyway. Is this any way to talk to your mother? With an agenda that I can see from a mile away, sitting across from me with this godawful liquid everyone calls coffee nowadays?"

He wasn't sure what to say to her. Then she stood and offered him a hand.

"Let's try something else," she said.

She took him out of his quarters and down to the central section to sit with him next to one of the trees. The scientists and synths walking about avoided them. It was strange to sit like this, like they were a family on a picnic, trying to enjoy the high atrium and the trees, which had an artificial quality that the ones in the past had not possessed.

They looked at each other for a long few moments. Shaun was not the best at faces, but even he could see how his eyes were a bit like hers, dark and upturned.

"Would you prefer that we talk like this in the future?" he asked. It was not the worst request to accommodate, if it would at least get her to sit down with him.

"I suppose," she said. "You're hard to talk with, Shaun. Even if I didn't know you were trying to persuade me to help the Institute out more. You're family, but a stranger. I know things about you – I know what you've done, but I don't know who you are."

"It's the same for me." He could try to infer from her actions. Law degree – she was intelligent and driven. She'd fallen in love. She liked robots and was prone to anthropomorphism when it came to them. She was either reckless or incredibly brave, to do some of the things their information network said that she'd done. But something was missing. Knowing that she was an intelligent, brave widow and his mother didn't make their conversations come easily.

"Clearly," she sighed, leaning back on her hands. "Sometimes I'm not even sure you're trying. Shaun, I don't think like other people here. I don't think you get that – really get that, I mean. Shh, don't interrupt," she said when he opened his mouth to protest. "Leaning on the nostalgia factor, talking about how things will be better for everyone. That's a clever trick. Too bad you don't actually know what I think. Oh, clean water, air, sure, but we've already got water purifiers at every settlement that make enough water that we can sell it for less than a Nuka-Cola. Is the Institute doing that much for humanity? I miss coffee, real coffee, but the nice science ladies in Diamond City came up with this tea you can make from the mutant flowers that tastes better than whatever sludge we've got now. And the past had a lot of flaws, too."

"You were discriminated against because of your ancestry."

"Wow, so you've read up on it. It wasn't just that – it was the way you had to start a family immediately, have your three darling children, the perfect house, the perfect life. I wore make-up even when I was going to spend the whole day taking care of Shaun. I wasn't a make-up person. It was just how things were. You went to baseball games and you bought war bonds, and – there were a lot of things I thought were rules, back then. That were rules, but ones nobody talked about."

He cleared his throat. "We don't need to recreate the past exactly. We're creating a new society. One where all people are valued equally. In fact, perhaps your experience could be helpful in trying to avoid baking in such rules as we move forward into a better world."

"Everyone's equal, except the synths, and everyone in your future society is great, except for the part where they killed my husband and stole my child from me," she said, and then she shook her head. "You know what, let's not have that argument today."

"Is there one you'd rather have instead?" he asked drily, and at last, her lip pulled up on one side. It was the closest she'd come to a smile around him in weeks.

"You know," she said, "the nice thing about the wasteland – once you get past the Deathclaws and the radiation and whatnot, I'll give you that – it's that people aren't that bad. There's all the hysteria about synths, but let's be real, here, that's entirely your fault for kidnapping people – shh, I said. But nobody flips out if I get covered in engine grease, and the settlements I've been founding, people are coming to them. People want to work together. People already want to work together, Shaun. Why aren't you working with them?"

He pressed his lips together. The world above was dirty and lawless. There were nice people, he was sure, but so many who were evil. "And the Raiders?"

"We've got a couple of reformed ones, actually. We keep an eye on them. I'm not saying it's Utopia. Maybe their kids will turn out okay if they're raised in a functional environment, though." She let out a long breath, staring up at the far-away ceiling, and then she turned and made the first contact between them: she put out her hand and rested it on his wrist. "Look, Shaun, I can talk about it all day, but it's not gonna be any more real than I am because you read up on me, or than the Institute was to me before I got here. You're always trying to make me come around. I'm always visiting you. I know you must be super busy, but can't you put in the effort once? If you really mean it?"

"You mean to say you want me to visit the surface?" He frowned at her.

"I know you don't want to. Nobody wanted me to come here, either. My friends said you would kidnap me."

He thought about it. It would be useful to know where she was coming from, what ideas the wasteland was giving her. It would be easier if he observed it in person, rather than trying to rely on synths and spies. But the surface....

"I know you're spying on us," she said. "Come on, Shaun. Don't you at least owe your mother a little respect?"

"We aren't—" She cut him off by simply raising an eyebrow. Well, she was intelligent. He inclined his head. "I'll consider it." He would have to arrange so much, and with his health, and the safety concerns... it wasn't going to happen, but he could at least give her the thought.

(A boyish curiosity told him that maybe it would be interesting. He probably shouldn't listen to that part.)

"Good," she said, and then she beamed at him. Despite the smudges on her face, it was just as bright as her smile in the past. She leaped to her feet, brushing off her trousers, though it made little difference. "You know, I found this perfectly preserved pie the other day. Must be full of industrial preservatives, but I know they're still good. Want to try it? The past did have its perks."

Pie. Pie sounded very good. They went back to his quarters, and split her tiny slice of pie, and they didn't touch the coffee, and they didn't talk, either, but she looked content for the first time since he'd known her.


End file.
